Six Nations kicks off 2010 championship with state-of-the art website

Fans of the RBS 6 Nations are not just celebrating the start of the 2010 tournament - but also the launch of a completely redesigned website.

Visitors will find the new look site - www.rbs6nations.com - slicker, fresher, more user friendly, and with a greater level of detail on each match in the championship.

The decision to refresh the site was driven by leading sports website developers, Sotic, who launched the previous RBS 6 Nations site in 2007.

David Strachan, Sotic's head of creative, said: "RBS 6 Nations is one of the most iconic championships in the world - particularly in the northern hemisphere - and has a massive following across the globe.

"It therefore deserves to have the best possible website - which is what we have provided with this upgraded design."

"The site is cleaner and more informative, and we have developed the match centre, which is a dedicated section created for every single fixture throughout the tournament. Here, you can read a preview of each match, find all the match news, reports, video, galleries and line-ups."

"There is information on the last three matches played, their tournament record, head to head statistics, how many times they have played, the numbers of tries, drop goals and scores against each other. There is even a visual pitch lay out so fans can find out who's playing in what position. You can click on a person to get the player statistics, along with a link to their full profile page."

As with many other Sotic sports website, the RBS 6 Nations site features a multi-media streaming player which can deliver video clips from third party suppliers, keeping fans up to date with all the latest action. The RBS 6 Nations is played every year between England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales, and outside of the Rugby World Cup is the tournament that will generate the most interest worldwide.

The RBS 6 Nations website already utilises a multilingual content management system which ensures all the text, from news stories, to page headers, league tables and alt tags, are in English, French and Italian. While navigating round, fans can hear the stirring Six Nations anthem, "Six Together", while playing games on the site, entering competitions or simply following the championship via Facebook. There is a bigger promotional area, with four drop down boxes, taking users to the RBS 6 Nations store, video, iPhone app and RBS RugbyForce.

And for journalists covering the event there is a virtual press office - a secure section where registered members of the media can receive press releases, download documents related to the tournament and get accreditation to attend the games.

Christine Connolly, RBS 6 Nations communications manager, said: "We think the upgraded site is very, very good and very easy to use. "We try to supply our fans with as much information as possible - they want statistics, highlights from the games and news - so to have it all in one place is great for them.